Ask Boot: Pain is(not) pleasure

So... time for another round of Ask Boot. If you have any questions for Boot, ask them either here or privately. He likes talking about things, and loves answering questions.

Soon we'll be back to fiction, maybe with more of Moriarty, maybe with something else. There's a request for a story about a nun (and an older one at that). Might head that way. Might answer any other request you people would care to make. 

In the meantime....

Ask Boot: pain and pleasure

So what’s the deal with pain?

Okay, you’re really going to have to be more specific.

Do you like pain?

Sometimes. Some kinds of pain.

What do you mean? There’s only one kind of pain. Something either hurts or it doesn’t.

Well, that’s just not true.

Okay. Why not? And while we’re on the subject, if you don’t like pain, what do you do when your top does?

Now we’re onto something. Let’s start with the whole thing where people like pain in the first place.

When I was younger, someone told me that my wires were crossed. Aside from the implication that I’m some kind of robot or machine, there was a pretty serious problem with this idea. It suggested that I was experiencing pain as pleasure, which also suggested that I would experience pleasure as pain. Giving my vigorous masturbation sessions, I can assure you that I didn’t experience pleasure as pain. But I can also be sure that I don’t misinterpret pain as pleasure.

I was once riding a bike on a gravel road. We were heading down hill, this friend and I, and going pretty fast. He turned his head and shouted something to me; I had no idea what he was saying. Then he suddenly cut to the right, pretty much right in front of me. I slammed on the brakes, my bike went vertical, and it stopped moving. I, unfortunately, did not. I flew through the air and landed in the gravel. Thankfully, I know how to fall, and so I tucked into the landing and managed to only tear up my palms, my shoulder, and my chest. That hurt quite a bit. And I didn’t enjoy that at all.

Sounds like your friend was kind of a jerk.

Maybe. He apparently was shouting to me that he was intending to turn; it was all an accident. But that’s not the point. The point is that it hurt. Just like it hurt when my appendix almost burst, or when I had a hernia. Lots of things in my life have hurt, and I didn’t get off on the pain. Sometimes, pain is just pain.

Maybe you’re just not a masochist.

No, I don’t think that’s it. When I play with someone, and the whips and floggers come out, they hurt at first. But at some point, this switch flips, and I start enjoying it. The endorphins start to flow out, and the whipping feels good. The clamps start turning me on rather than aching. The trampling pressure feels good instead of painful. It’s not a matter of wires being crossed. And honestly, it’s not a matter of a switch flipping. It’s a matter of endorphins.

That said, there is some pain that I like just as is. I like it because of the pain, not despite it. But I don’t feel this way about all kinds of pain.

Oh, I get it. So a grind across gravel is bad pain, but a whip is good pain. So it’s about intent.

Nope, that’s not it either. I mean, sure, it’s a part of it. I’m more likely to be okay with pain if I know it’s coming. That’s a consent thing. But I mean there are different kinds of pain. It really isn’t that hard to wrap your head around. There are different kinds of pleasures, different kinds of odors, different kinds of sound. Warmth can be pleasurable, so can a tongue on a sensitive part of the body; both are pleasure, but they are very different kinds of pleasure. Swedish massages are different from hot stone massages, though both are relaxing.

Dog shit smells different from cat piss, though both smell bad.

Country music sucks. So does Justin Beiber. But they suck in different ways.

Pain is like that. As far as I know, there are four basic types of pain: Stinging, thudding, dull and sharp.

Stinging pain is usually very focused on one point at a time, like the lash of a single tail whip, the sting of a slap in the face, the smack of a riding crop. It’s a lot of sensation focused on a very small area, lighting nerves on fire. Part of it comes from the shock of sudden sensation, part of it from the focus that pain demands. Some people really like that.

Thudding pain is more spread out, and usually has more force behind it. You don’t need to hit someone very hard with stinging pain. In fact, you generally want to pull back at the last second in order to get that snap of the whip that causes the sting. With a thudding pain, you’re putting a lot of pressure to a relatively large area. A paddle causes thudding pain (unless it is spanked quickly, only a little bit of it making contact; then we have stinging pain). Kicking with the flat of the foot or the insole is thudding pain. A flogger pounding down on someone is thudding pain. Part of the joy comes from the rush of input from such a large area, part of it from the generalized sensation it causes. Some people really like that, too.

Dull pain is the kind of pain that lasts, that throbs in the background no matter how hard you try to ignore it. When you first put on nipple clamps, there’s sharp pain. But the longer you leave them on, the more dull that pain becomes. Dull pain can be almost forgotten; it becomes part of the background situation. You know you’re in pain, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You may not realize just how much pain you’re actually in until it ends, or until you realize that your pain tolerance is so low, because you’re already so close to your threshold. This is the pain that comes from being crushed under someone’s boot, from having weights hung from your testicles, from being bound in an uncomfortable position. Part of it is the way you can almost (but not quite) forget about it, part of it is the slow fade of agony as it starts to go away, when you realize just how much you were able to take.

Sharp pain is essentially the opposite of dull pain. It’s the sudden blast of agony that, often times, fades into dull pain. It’s a lot like stinging pain, but is often deeper. This is the pain of needles being pushed through flesh, the pain of a knife blade, of lemon juice poured into an open cut. This is the agony of a sudden swift kick to the balls that only just barely clips, the pain that races through the body with the kind of flame that seems to outline your whole nervous system.

So those are the four basic types of pain. And I don’t like all of them.

Personally, I like thudding pain and dull pain. I like getting kicked, I like getting trampled or crushed. But it’s not exclusive; I do like being kicked in the crotch under the right circumstance. But I enjoy the lingering pain (the dull) more than the sudden pain (the sharp).

Other people are different; that’s kind of the way life works.

Okay, sure. But what about if you don’t like any pain? What do you do if your partner does?

There are a couple of options there. One is to find another or an additional partner. One is to negotiate a bit and figure out something you want that you are willing to endure the pain in order to get. And for the record ‘orgasm’ isn’t a good answer. If I’m with someone who wants to whip me, and I don’t want to be whipped, but she doesn’t want her boots licked… well, then we have something to negotiate. I’ll let her whip me if I can lick those wonderful boots. But to get sexual pleasure out of the scene… shouldn’t that be everyone’s goal?

Damn, Boot. Is there anything you don’t know?

Probably.

Okay, how about this: What’s the deal with Twerking?

I have no idea. None at all. So there you go: something I don’t know.